Posts tagged wifi

Techie culture-vultures aren't likely to encounter Vine upload fails anymore at Seattle's home to arts, culture and the Space Needle thanks to Microsoft. The city's biggest patron has installed a new WiFi service at the Seattle Center that uses new technology to blow away the previous system's spe...

Even if your home is in the best area for fibre broadband, and you're paying for the fastest speeds, a cheap router can let you down. Slow and patchy wireless connectivity is commonplace in the UK, in part because internet service providers (ISPs) give their subscribers ropey hardware to plug into...

Public internet access in Cuba usually comes at a steep price -- a local may have to use a week's wages just to spend an hour emailing their family overseas. However, they now have a much, much more reasonable option. The country's state-run telecom, ETECSA, recently approved the country's first f...

Android 5.1 has been available to Nexus devices for a little while now, and it looks like one of its neatest features - sorry HD Voice and Device Protection - isn't quite ready for public consumption yet. Thanks to a little bit of sleuthing by Pocketables editor-in-chief John Freml, it looks like ...

Right now, the only ways to get around Android Wear are to use your voice or swipe your fingers. What if you'd rather not talk to your smartwatch, and don't have a hand free? You may have another option soon. A source for The Verge claims that a future Android Wear update will add gesture control ...

We've all experienced ropey reception at one time or another. Those frustrating moments when you really need to make a call, but the line just won't connect, or you're left trying to decipher broken, distorted responses from the other person. Now, following EE, Three and O2, Vodafone has announced...

WiFi monitoring cameras, like Dropcam, are great for keeping tabs while you're away. But what if there were devices that didn't require that connection, or to be plugged in all the time? Meet Panasonic's Nubo: a 4G-equipped security camera that can still keep a watchful eye on situations where the...

Wireless spectrum is expensive, which is why carriers are eyeing up at the portions of our airwaves that are currently reserved for WiFi. According to GigaOm, T-Mobile is planning to stick its tanks on the WiFi industry's lawn by launching a form of 4G that operates on the 5GHz band, promising bet...

With Tu Go, O2 customers have been able to make calls on their laptop or send texts using a tablet for some time now. It's a simple service, but it always required a separate app to get things done. Luckily, that's changing today, after the operator announced that it's brought its multi-device pla...

If you've flown Delta recently (or most domestic airlines) and tried to use the onboard Gogo WiFi, you know that it's often a crapshoot. A combination of where you're flying over and the number of passengers attempting to use it leads to either a decent connection (yay!), one that's slow as a snai...

There's not much you can learn from a Comcast job ad, but that won't prevent speculation about its entry into the mobile business. The company has posted an advert asking for warm bodies executives to lead the company's push into the "wireless ecosystem." According to the pitch to would-be employe...

In the future, you might be able to tweet, read your emails and stream music on the London Underground without using Virgin Media's WiFi service. As part of new proposals to boost the capital's economy, the UK government has revealed its desire to bring 3G and 4G connectivity to the entire Tube ne...

Everyone gets WiFi issues every now and then, some more severe than others, prompting companies like Eero to conjure up possible solutions. A San Diego company called Ethertronics believes its new "active antenna" chip originally developed for cellphones can solve slow WiFi connections, though. ...

We already know that it's possible to map your home's WiFi signal in 2D, but that doesn't help if you're holding your phone above your head to get connected. Step forward YouTuber CNLohr, who appears to have developed a reasonably low-tech way to analyze the WiFi strength of any 3D space. Using ju...

Sure, large parts of the UK are now blanketed with fast and reliable mobile service, but you always know that when you jump on a train you're going to hit some rough patches. The government knows that this particular struggle is real, so it's investing almost £50 million to take some of the ...

The all-WiFi phone service Cablevision announced in January is now available. Unlike the usual mobile carrier, the Freewheel phone (currently a $100 second generation Moto G) only operates on WiFi -- to keep costs down it doesn't look for 3G, LTE or any other kind of signal. Of course, if you're c...

Despite the rise of mirrorless cameras, Canon has been relatively cautious updating its Rebel DSLR line. The last big upgrade was the T5i from two years ago, and even that was considered more of a refresh than a revamp. Well, the series is finally getting an overhaul -- and in some cases, it might...

Joystiq may be gone, but it's not forgotten as we announce a new beginning with Joystiq X Engadget. Meanwhile, Eero wants to create a mesh network to solve your difficult home WiFi issues and Razer's new laptop gives you portable gaming in a powerful package. All that and more of today's top stori...

While many of the devices we use every day depend on WiFi -- everything from our smartphones to our TVs -- most home WiFi networks are still woefully slow compared to their wired alternatives. Enter Eero, a small San Francisco startup that aims to bring home WiFi into the future. How? By combining...

There's no shortage of smart appliances now, but that won't help you much if you bought your gear a few years ago. What if you want to get your existing refrigerator talking to the rest of your automated home? GE may soon have a solution... if you're one of its previous customers, anyway. The comp...